State-owned Land Bank of the Philippines will put up this year eight more branches outside Metro Manila to extend its financial services to more rural areas.

The government-run bank has 334 branches all over the country, of which 213 are in Luzon, 53 are in the Visayas, and 68 are in Mindanao.

The bank also has 1,082 automated teller machines.

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As it turns 50 years old this year, Landbank said that it aims to better fulfill its developmental mandate by expanding its reach, and extending more loans to priority sectors such as the agriculture and fisheries sectors and small and medium scale enterprises.

“We welcome our 50th year poised for further growth and expansion as we seek to provide customers with convenient transactions and easier access to banking products and services,” Landbank president Gilda Pico said Thursday in a statement.

In the first three quarters of 2012, Landbank posted a net income of P7.6 billion, up by 7 percent from P7.1 billion in the same period the previous year.

The bank credits its profit growth partly to more aggressive lending, which is consistent with its mandate of helping boost growth of the economy through lending to the priority sectors.

The expansion plan of Land bank in 2013 comes amid the push by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for financially sound and stable banks to put up more branches in areas that lack access to financial services.

The BSP said that to make the Philippines’ economic growth more broad-based, banks should establish branches in remote areas.

It also said banks must meet the growing demand for loans and other financial products and services that come along with a growing economy.